Belarus suspends electricity generation at the Astravyez NPP due to technical problems
Moscow, Nov. 10, LETA – INTERFAX. The Astravyez Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Belarus has temporarily suspended electricity production, the NPP press service has confirmed to Interfax.
The Belarusian Ministry of Energy said Monday night that it would be necessary to replace “certain equipment” to resume electricity production, but the reasons were not revealed.
The NPP press service could not name the time when it was planned to resume electricity production.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian media report that the turbine of the first power unit of the NPP had to be stopped on Sunday due to the failure of transformers in one of the units.
It is emphasized that the incident did not pose a threat of radioactivity leakage.
Belarus reportedly commissioned the newly built Astravyez NPP last Tuesday, but it was officially opened on Saturday by incumbent President Alexander Lukashenko.
The NPP was built by the Russian company Rosatom and Moscow has provided a $ 10 billion loan to finance it.
Lithuania, whose capital Vilnius is only 50 kilometers away from the new NPP, has been particularly active in opposing its construction.
Vilnius responded to its launch by suspending commercial electricity exchanges between Belarus and Lithuania.
The new NPP is also controversially assessed in Belarus itself, which once suffered from the 1986 Chernobyl NPP disaster.
Andrei Sannikov, one of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition, said on Twitter that the Astravyez NPP was a “geopolitical weapon” in the hands of Lukashenko and the Kremlin against the European Union (EU) and a “radioactive threat to Belarus and Europe”.
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